Monday, August 26, 2013

If your kids are new to camping and you want to test-drive the experience before committing to an actual camping trip, try a Backyard Camp-Out!

Grab (or borrow) a tent, sleeping bags, pillows, and folding chairs. Then enlist your kids to help set up your camp site.

Don't forget some stuffed animals to snuggle at night! And a few extra blankets; it can get chilly at night.

Once the camp site is ready, it's time to have some fun! Take a dip in the pool, play catch, get out your lawn games, even unleash a few surprises. As long as you're outdoors, any activity is fair game.

Splash time in the kiddie pool.

Game-face during Bocce Ball.

Surprise! Silly String time!

To help keep everyone outside during the Camp Out, be sure to pack snacks to keep at your camp site and load the cooler with water and other beverages. Enjoy your meals picnic-style, or just lounging in chairs. Of course, trips inside to use the bathroom are allowed.

Lunch break.

Play a few more games, blow some bubbles, have another splash in the pool or sprinkler, then take a walk to gather sticks for the fire. After the walk, it's time to prepare the fire.

We decided the barbecue grill was in-bounds for our camp out, so we grilled veggie burgers for dinner, along with some side salads that were prepared ahead of time.

Another walk and a little more play time, and then it's time to settle down. The boys had their first S'mores by the camp fire!

S'mores face.

Then we changed into pajamas and read stories by the fire. It's a good idea to keep flashlights or camping lanterns handy for night-time bathroom runs.

Once the kids were asleep, my ROCpoppa and I got to enjoy the camp fire in peace and quiet for a little while. Then we snuggled in with the kids. Miraculously, everyone stayed asleep until their normal wake-up time. Woo Hoo! Success!

Now that we know the kids enjoy camping, we are definitely going to plan a real camping trip. How about your family? Be sure to Post a Comment and share your camping tips and experiences! As always, thanks for reading.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Get ready for back-to-school with this Backyard Summer Camp theme week! Help your young ones review the basics in lots of fun ways. Of course, these ideas are just the beginning to a boredom-free week at home with the kids. Be sure to come up with your own creative ideas - and encourage the kids to come up with some, too.

Alphabet Hunt: Materials: camera, scrapbook supplies or digital photo book site (such as Shutterfly.com). Instructions: Go for a walk and
take photos of things that begin with A-Z. Upload or print out your photos and make a photo book together.

Rainbow Ice for the Water Table or
Kiddie Pool. A little preparation is necessary for this one. Day 1: fill an ice cube tray or muffin tin with water
and add drops of food coloring to each section. Day 2: pop the cubes out
into a water table or kiddie pool of water and watch the kids go crazy!

Jumping Letters. Draw a chalk grid with a letter in
each square – use a Scattegories die to roll and call a letter; players run to
that letter…or take turns spelling names by jumping to letters.

Target Practice. Use sidewalk
chalk to write age-appropriate words (i.e., Kindergarten sight words, or just
letters or shapes for Pre-K); give kids a bucket of water balloons; call out a
word or letter and have the children find it and hit it with a water balloon.

Quiet Play

Sponge-shape stamping. Materials: new kitchen sponges,
safety scissors, paint, paper. Help your kids cut the sponges into a variety of shapes, then let them stamp the sponges into paint and onto the paper for some unique artwork. For even more fun, try vegetable stamping!

Play BINGO.

Shape experiment: roll card stock
into different shapes (cylinder, triangle, square); stand on one end and test
to find out which tower can hold the most books (see All for the Boys blog)

Mixology: fill two clear cups
halfway with water and place an empty clear cup in between; place drops of one
primary color (red, blue, or yellow) into the water of one cup and a different
primary color into the other water cup.
Twist up two paper towels; place the end of one into the first color and
the other end into the empty cup. Place the end of the second paper towel into
the second color and the other end also into the empty cup. Check back every
few minutes to see what happens.

Check out some fun math problems on Bed Time Math. Each day features a new story with related math problems for all age groups.

Make LEGO letters, numbers, and
shapes; sort LEGO bricks by color.

Use colored dominoes to make numbers, letters, shapes, and even a rainbow.

Read stories about numbers,
letters, shapes, and colors.

Write a story together about numbers,
letters, shapes, or colors…perhaps a story about what crayons do while we are
sleeping. Let kids illustrate.

A domino rainbow.

Making LEGO numbers.

Field Trips

Playground Shapes. Make a list
together of all the shapes your kids recognize; visit a playground and tally the number of times
you spot each shape.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

If your kids are fans of cars, trucks, trains, and planes, then this Backyard Summer Camp theme week is for them. There are plenty ideas to get you started here, plus have fun allowing your kids to come up with their own.

Backyard Car Wash.Materials: shaving cream (foam, not gel),
toy cars, containers, a hose. Instructions: for each child, fill a container with shaving
cream for the car wash; fill a second container with water to rinse the cars. When the fun is done, hose everything off and leave them out to dry.

Chalk Roadway. With sidewalk
chalk on the driveway (or painter’s tape indoors), this is perfect for racing toy cars
around.

Marble Race Track. PARENTS ONLY: Cut a pool
noodle in half lengthwise with a serrated knife for instant marble race tracks. Add an empty box to catch the marbles at the end.

Wash the car! Grab a bucket and
some sponges or rags, and let the kids go crazy. Be sure to lock the doors
first to prevent your helpful little ones from washing the inside. (Yes, it’s
happened.) If your kids are too young to wash the car, turn this into a field
trip and drive the car through a car wash together.

Washing the real car...

..."washing" the toy cars.

Quiet Play

Make box cars. (large boxes, paint) Although when we tried this, it turned into painting a vehicle onto a small box. Oh well; it was still fun!

Make and race bottle-cap sailboats.Materials: cap from gallon of milk; glue dot; toothpick; triangle of felt, paper,
or foam, container for water. Instructions: Attach a triangle of felt, paper, or foam to a toothpick. Place a glue dot inside the bottle cap and insert toothpick into the glue. Fill a container about half-way with water and launch your sail boat. Older kids may want to try a milk carton sail boat.

Paint with vehicles. Pour washable
tempera paints onto paper plates; have kids drive through the paint with toy
vehicles, then run the vehicles over paper to compare the tracks they make.

Use Play-Doh to make your favorite
things that go; or flatten Play-Doh and drive different toy vehicles over the
dough to make tracks.

Color-Sorting Parking Lot: use
painter’s tape in a rainbow of colors to create a parking lot on the floor
(alternatively, line up pieces of construction paper); gather toy vehicles and
“drive” them to their appropriate parking space by matching the vehicle color
to the tape (or paper).

Make LEGO vehicles

Read stories about cars, trucks,
planes, trains, boats, etc.

Write a story together about the
fastest car ever. Let kids illustrate.

Painting box cars
...or painting cars on boxes.

Bottle-cap Boat Races

Closer look at the bottle-cap boat.

Painting with vehicles.

Play-Doh roads for toy cars.

Field Trips

Visit the airport and watch planes
take off & land.

Play and picnic at a park near
train tracks to watch for trains that pass by. (Rochester Area: Kings Bend Park
in Pittsford, NY and Perinton Park in Fairport, NY each have train tracks on
the perimeter)

Friday, August 2, 2013

We're in the home stretch of summer, so let's make the most of the next few weeks with some more Backyard Summer Camp theme weeks...

Ahoy mateys! Grab an eye patch, a bandana, some gold doubloons, and perhaps a sword (or a cardboard tube from a roll of wrapping paper, as the case may be) and prepare yourselves for a swashbuckling adventure with plenty of opportunities to say, "Yo ho ho." Have fun with these Pirate Week suggestions, and coming up with your own!

Have a Treasure Hunt. Make a map
the night before - indoors or outdoors, depending on the weather forecast - while the kids are sleeping. Hide something fun for the kids to find – bubbles, punching
balloons, etc.

Make a Pirate Fort with some chairs and bed sheets. Check out this Fort Round-up at the All For The Boys blog.

Canon Ball Toss! Use sidewalk chalk to draw a pirate ship for each player on the driveway or sidewalk; fill some water balloons. Have each player stand on their ship and play catch with the
water balloons.

Build a Pirate Ship. Grab a cardboard box (the bigger, the better), some paint, and any other embellishments you can find to make your very own pirate ship. Check out this post on At Home With Ali for some inspiration.

Make an Active Treasure Map! If your kids had fun with a regular treasure hunt, blow them away with this variation. Add instructions to any ol' treasure map: hop on one foot down the walkway, walk backward from the back door to the tree, do 10 jumping jacks by the swings, etc., plus add in some letter recognition. Head over to the ReadingConfetti blog for the how-to.

Panning for Treasure. Fill a large
bin or kiddie pool halfway with sand then water; hide treasure – craft store
jewels, seashells, or fool’s gold – in the sand, then give each child a sieve to pan for
treasure.

Treasure Hunt - we found a clue!

Quiet Play

Make paper pirate ships &
decorate them.

Make a LEGO pirate ship.

Make a Play-Doh pirate ship.

Read stories about pirates.

Go through the costume bin and dress like a pirate.

Make a pirate snack! Create a Pirate Island using your kids' favorite veggies: corn for the sand, sugar snap peas for palm trees, zucchini slices for a hammock, and cherry tomatoes resting on the hammock. Yum!

Write a story together about your
adventures on a pirate ship. Let kids illustrate.

Go to the library for books about pirates
(e.g., Olive's Pirate Party by Roberta Baker, Follow That Map by Scot Ritchie, Shiver Me Letters: A Pirate ABC by June Sobel, How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long & David Shannon, On a Pirate Ship by Sarah Courtauld & Benji Davies, Captain Abdul's Pirate School by Colin McNaughton, Pirate Girl by Cornelia Funke, No Bath, No Cake!: Polly's Pirate Party by Matthias Weinert)

About Me

ROCmomma is dedicated to finding fun things to do in the Rochester, NY area, awesome (but easy) craft projects for young kids, kid-friendly recipes, as well as tips for the rare date night or girls' night out.